NET CHATS

Internet junkies reveling in uninhibited on-line discourse are finding flies on the walls of their chat rooms.

Local companies, including Ameritech Corp., Quaker Oats Co. and Allstate Corp., are bugging Internet discussion groups-called news groups or chat rooms. Mostly, they just listen. But if they hear negative comments about their products or other activities, they might jump into the discussion.

As on-line forums have proliferated, they have become breeding grounds for public relations fiascoes. In freewheeling, anonymous on-line discussions, incendiary messages often blast corporations and their products.

Ignoring these missives can be perilous. The most notorious example of the pain that news groups can inflict is the experience of computer chip maker Intel Corp., which saw flaws in its vaunted Pentium processor exposed to the world via the Internet.

"You can't afford to ignore something that has 30 million people using it," says Mike Brand, director of media relations strategy for Ameritech Corp.

Like many companies, Ameritech taps the chatter in several news groups. Usually, the company sits quietly in the back row, taking note of comments about the company, its products and issues of special interest-like telecommunications deregulation.

News group discussions show companies how they look to the world. They can be direct pipelines to customers and investors, and periscopes into competitors. They also can be arenas where corporate reputations take a pounding.

"You can have a cyber-crisis," says Paul Rand, executive vice-president of Golin/Harris Communications Inc. in Chicago, who advises clients to respond quickly to news group criticism and rumors.

Knowing how to play offense and defense on the Internet is becoming increasingly important. While most companies are on-line wall flowers, some are learning to work a chat room.

Not surprisingly, high-tech companies are among the most active. Addressing questions and criticisms from news groups is part of the marketing process for these companies, whose technology-savvy customers often critique products in on-line sessions.

Another local software company keeping an eye on news groups is Chicago's D-Vision Systems Inc., a maker of film and video editing software.

"At least once a day, we look into several news groups, chat rooms and forums where people in the (film editing) business hang out," says Deborah Gordon, president of a Chicago public relations firm bearing her name, which does PR work for D-Vision.

Vigilance pays off

Electronic vigilance paid off on two recent occasions, when Ms. Gordon's firm squelched separate rumors that D-Vision was having a hard time developing Windows-compatible software and had stopped supporting older versions of its programs.

Such surgical strikes can work, but public relations firms advise against broader campaigns to influence Internet opinion. Self-styled redoubts of honest inquiry and discussion, the more than 16,000 news groups excoriate those who would corrupt their sessions with crass promotional messages.

"You can get flamed," warns Rick Johnson, president of Parallax Technology Group, a Chicago PR firm specializing in technology companies. "Flaming" is the practice of harshly rebuking on-line sales pitches and other breaches of news group etiquette.

"If they sense that you're coming from a commercial entity, they smell a rat," says Nancy Ruscheinski, director of interactive solutions at Edelman Public Relations Worldwide in Chicago.

Posting recipes on behalf of client Butterball Turkey Co. is about as aggressive as Edelman gets in news groups. Nonetheless, Internet monitoring is a burgeoning business for Edelman and other local PR firms.

Thirty-five clients pay the firm $200 a month to check for on-line references to their companies. The real payoff for PR firms comes from their advice to clients about strategies to deal with issues raised in news groups-work billed at the firms' standard hourly rates.

Other companies do the monitoring themselves. Using Internet search software from White Plains, N.Y.-based EWorks Inc., companies can do keyword searches covering more than 16,000 Internet news groups.

At Quaker Oats, Public Relations Director Ron Bottrell focuses on financial news groups, where investors congregate to discuss stocks. Comments about Quaker tell him what shareholders are thinking and alert him to issues that should be addressed in the company's annual report and other financial communications.

"It would be like going to a Schwab or Fidelity office and standing around the Quotron as investors chitchat about stocks," he says.

Inside information

Chitchat flows freely in the clubhouse atmosphere of news groups. Off-duty employees often let slip information of great interest to competitors of their employers-and companies are catching on to this source of inside information.

"It becomes a very cost-effective way to learn what their competitors are saying and doing," says Mr. Johnson of Parallax.

In an even more sinister twist, some companies are monitoring what their employees say in news groups, according to Chip Steitz, direct sales manager of EWorks, who declines to identify clients that eavesdrop on their employees.

However, most companies have a more global reason for tapping into news groups.

"We want to know what's being said about us," says Kathleen Hogan, a media relations specialist at Allstate in Northbrook.